Mass Effect: Vicisitudes
by HighStormCommanderHanji
Summary: Old soldiers are hard to kill... that's why Garrus Vakarian has lived this long, long enough to tell his story to those who would listen. Though for all the blood, pain, and heartbreak he isn't quite sure who would want to listen... Covers the events leading up to ME3 and onward.
1. Chapter 1

Well, here goes.

My name is Garrus Vakarian. You probably already knew that, but reminders never hurt. What I'm about to tell you, what is enclosed in these pages, is the story of my life.

Well… that's not exactly true. I am going to tell you the important stories of my life, the best ones of the bunch. A certain Asari began questioning me, in my old age, on whether my life had any kind of documentation to it, any kind of legitimate legacy. When the answer to that question turned out to be no, she demanded that I dictate this… whatever you want to call it, out to the computer. You know, for posterity.

How this all appears to whoever is reading, what kind of moral standing you get out of this, I don't intend to make that my focus. I'm not here to write a bestselling novel. I'm here to tell a true story, one that is unique, tragic, terrifying… yet hopeful, inspiring, and as close to reality as I can get it. I am here not to tell my own story, even, just my part in it. This story is as much hers as it is mine. This story belongs just as much to Anna Shepard as it does to me.

If you're sitting there, asking if I mean "the Shepard", the one who saved all galactic civilization as we know it, then yes, that is exactly who I mean. We were both soldiers, we both fought in the Reaper war, side by side. We were together more than any two people in the galaxy ever could hope to be. I loved her.

We first met on the Citadel in 2183 when she was looking for evidence that a Spectre had gone rogue. I was the head of the C-Sec investigation responsible for finding proof, but I never did find it, not on my own. It took a bit of Shepard's miracle work to make that happen. By the end of the day we were leading the mission to bring Saren down, and in doing so we were well on our way to saving the galaxy. I won't go into detail, because you likely already have a pretty keen idea of how that story goes. Besides, that isn't the story I want to tell.

No, the story I want to tell is the one of Shepard and I's life together, the one that we shared until the day she died .

I'll go ahead and spoil something for you right now… Shepard has been dead for about five years. I've outlived her by a good deal, and I don't regret anything more than that, but I know that she is waiting for me, somewhere. I'm an old thing, going on more than eighty years old now, I can't imagine going on much longer without her. For the lives that she and I had, we lived longer than many expected. I chalk it up to the miracles of modern medicine, but she would always tell me it was Fate giving us our dues for all the bullshit thrown our way. In either reality we've lived a good life and I wanted to be the one to tell the universe about it. We've deserved that much.

I won't lie, I'm not the best at storytelling. I was a vigilante for a living, not a historian, and I was never the best at explaining things in retrospect. However, my old age has given me plenty of time to smooth things out in my memory and gather my words, so it is my hope that this will be at least somewhat coherent. When you don't have a giant gun to calibrate thirty five times a day, the time seems to run together like it's nothing. Hell, even when you do it does the same thing, just minus the boredom and anxiousness.

Heh, I'm not even more than a page into this damn story yet, and I'm already babbling about like it's my first date. When you have nearly a lifetime of experiences to share, and only so many words to spell them out with, it's easy to get lost in the dialogue, I guess. But, enough rambling about nothing, I think it is time to begin in earnest.

In the short months before the Reapers first arrived, I realized that we didn't have much time. The galaxy was woefully unprepared to fight something like that, and the Council was as uncooperative as ever. The combination of their denial and inaction had me on edge, especially after what I saw in the Collector base through the Omega-4 relay. That place was living proof of what the Reapers did to life when they found it, and I didn't much like the thought of seeing the galaxy turned into their playthings. I had thought to try and convince Shepard to aid me in giving the Council a thorough ass-kicking when we returned from the suicide mission, but before I could ask her she went and made an enemy of the Illusive man. Mind you, Cerberus was bad news to begin with, and the thought of being in their employ longer than I needed to was sickening, but she definitely caught me off guard when she told me that we were going rogue with their ship. Making sure Cerberus didn't have any secret eyes in the Normandy took priority after that.

She had an innate capacity to piss people off when they didn't agree with her, and it never ceased to amaze me when she returned from a mission with a whole new list of people that wanted to kill her. Adding Cerberus to the database was definitely a change, but wasn't anything we hadn't handled before. She had taken on everything from Reapers to rogue spectres to Thresher Maws, and I was fairly certain that the Illusive man didn't have any Thresher Maws. I trusted Shepard's judgement on the decision, and stayed by her as long as I could before things got dicey.

When we returned to Alliance space the Normandy was instantly flagged and brought in by a patrol. We didn't argue, on Shepard's orders, but flying with an armed escort while in a stealth cruiser… you knew you were in trouble. Trouble, as it turned out, was an understatement. Alliance brass wanted to court martial Shepard on the spot when we docked at Arcturus station, and convincing the security council that she didn't actually work for Cerberus was a chore in itself. Finding an excuse for the rest of us was damn near impossible, in the moment. Shepard didn't have a Spectre badge to wave in front of anyone anymore, half of the crew was considered AWOL from the Alliance, and the other half had warrants for arrest in every system beyond the Traverse.

There was also the… little issue with the Alpha Relay. Shepard never told anyone besides Admiral Hackett what happened on that asteroid, but the result was a grim one. 300,000 Batarians dead, an entire system wiped, and a mass relay taken off the map. Of course, we all knew that was the only reason any of us survived as long as we did, since she bought us the time we needed, but someone had to take the heat for that and she was the only one they could pin it on.

The only thing that saved us from being arrested by the Alliance and tried as terrorists was Councilor Udina, if you could believe it. Shepard was cleared on necessity, since she was one of the only cooperative humans that had fought the Reapers before. Udina saw the rest of us, those that hadn't bailed before we reached Arcturus, as accessory consultants and experts for the fight. His sudden about face on the Reaper issue had us all a bit ready to gut him outright, but didn't stop the council from denying that anything had to be done. To them, it was just humanity crying wolf again.

We all paid for their ignorance with blood. Over a trillion lives were lost in the war... how many of them would be alive if they had started preparing weeks, months, years before they did? We'll never know. People would die, there was no doubting that, but even if just a fraction of those people had gotten to live, it would have been easier to swallow.

Since I wasn't on active service with the Hierarchy, the Alliance didn't have much to go off of when trying to convict me. Sure, Udina had gotten me cleared of any affiliation with Cerberus, but the Alliance couldn't actually get me tried for anything. The Hierarchy had bigger problems than a vigilante going to work for humans with the war on Taetrus going on in the forefront, and I wasn't about to complain… Except, I did complain, a lot actually.

I knew what would happen when the Reapers smashed their way into our territory… I had seen the results of the Prothean extinction myself. Those of us that knew what to expect were scared shitless at every moment, and those of us that didn't were probably worse off. With every military in the galaxy seemingly occupied with some threat or another, I didn't have anywhere to go, but then I had a thought. A crazy one, but it was still a thought. It led me to go and find me father, an old C-sec officer and a good friend of Primarch Fedorian. I figured that he was my best shot and knocking some sense into someone, anyone with enough power to do something meaningful. I went back to Palaven after the Alliance let me go, but it wasn't easy. If I didn't think that we were all going to die if I didn't do something urgently, then I would have stayed with Shepard for as long she wanted. It was my worst fear that I'd never see her again, but I knew I had to go. That didn't make it any easier to see the fear in her eyes as I left her cell.

I drowned our fears in purpose, and made for Palaven with as much speed as I could afford to carry me.

Back home life seemed to be going just as smoothly as anything had ever been. My father had just entered retirement, and my sister wasn't very receptive to my attempts at socializing in past times. She was more worried about mom than anything, and I didn't blame her. Corpalis syndrome, the rapid and aggressive degeneration of the neural pathway, is rare for Turians, but that didn't stop her from being diagnosed with it. Her treatments had been going poorly and Solana, my sister, was always closer to her than anyone else. I had seen death, but Solana was living with it, day in and day out. My inability to help her with the payments didn't exactly serve as a bridge to our relationship, either. Despite all this, home was still home, and given the circumstances it felt good to come back. We lived in a small city on the planet's surface, the southwestern hemisphere. Turians were never fond of flashy architecture so the place was pretty cut and dry, a few decorations and add ons but not much else.

I remember walking into the place for the first time in years, and feeling like I was sixteen again coming home from boot camp. It was refreshing, in way, to experience that kind of reconnect with myself. For so long my home had been wherever I decided to lay my head down, or in the shuttle bay of the Normandy. Having something to come back to that didn't contain a drive core was...different.

I was alone at first, no one home but the cleaning mech. But, that didn't last for long. I wasn't in the main foyer for longer than ten minutes when the door opened behind me. Turning around, I saw Solana staring at me with her mouth wide open.

"Garrus…"

That was all she could say, she was just that stunned to see me. I hadn't been home since I left for the Citadel, and it had been longer still since I had seen her in person, so she had every right to react the way she did. I wasn't expecting a grand welcome, and I wasn't expecting a hug and kiss return home. Still, she humored me in her own way.

"Yeah… Hi, Sol. I'm home."

"Garrus… Why are you here?" she asked me, as she inched closer to me, maybe worried I carried some kind of odd off-world pathogen, or that I was some kind of VI that looked like her estranged brother.

"I came to talk to dad, it's important."

"He's been out for most of the day, he won't be back until later."

She narrowed her eyes at me when she reached point blank range. Before I could react, she balled a fist and gave me a good punch in the face. She nearly broke my visor, in fact.

"Argh, damnit Solana, what the hell?!"

"Hi!? That's all you can say after being gone for all this time? You think you just get to walk back in that door and pick up where things left off? Spirits, have you even seen Mom since you've been back?"

I did my best to ignore the blatant judgement in her eyes and violent subharmonics she displayed, taking the beating with some semblance of composure.

"No… I haven't. I need to talk with Dad first, this is impo-"

Another swift blow to my head silenced me, and the now perfectly audible growl she harbored presented her opinion more than simple words could.

"I was hoping… to avoid the violence, for once. I think I've had enough to last me a lifetime, and no I wasn't planning on just 'walking back in that door' without a good reason to."

"Well unless you've got a damn good reason for being here that doesn't involve your family, I think we can both tell what will come next." she threatened, brandishing her talons in a menacing fashion as I recovered from her assaults.

"I… I'm trying to make sure that we all don't die in a galactic holocaust, for starters, and I also wanted to get the chance to make sure that I saw my family. Y'know, for the laughs."

She stared at me with that stunned look continuously, like she could barely grasp the reality that I was in front of her for the first time in years, not even contemplating what I was saying to her. I wasn't expecting her to explode the way she did, since she never expressed this kind of disdain when we talked over comm buoys. Shepard always did say that I had a knack for missing signals, so maybe I was really as dense as Solana made me out to be.

"Sol… I don't expect to just come back and act like nothing happened. I wasn't there for a long time, and I wasn't there when you all needed me… when Mom needed me. I'm sorry, for everything, but I'm trying to make things right now. I'm not sure how much time of this peace we have left."

"We're not exactly at peace, Garrus. In case you haven't been paying attention, we're at war."

"I know, but compared to what's coming this will seem like child's play."

"You keep speaking so cryptically, what the hell are you even talking about?"

I was leaving out the important parts until I was ready for a prolonged conversation, but since dad wouldn't be back for some time, according to her, then it seemed now was as good a time as any to get this over with.

"Come on", I told her, as I motioned to the other room. "This is something that needs a bit of context to understand."

In the hours that followed, I recounted every classified detail that I had to leave out of our conversations for the last three years. The Reapers, Saren, Cerberus, the Collectors, I spared her nothing. It would all be a reality sooner or later for her, so I figured it better for her to be prepared. The longer anyone had to digest it, the better. She interrupted frequently, often to ask something about another species, or about Shepard. She asked about Shepard a lot, and was quite enthralled when I told her that we were… romantically involved. I left a lot out about that, but she kept on trying to reel me back into a conversation about her. I wasn't sure if she was trying to deflect from the fact that the galaxy was about to be subject to mass extinction, or was just fixated on the fact that I was dating a human.

Regardless of her intent to fixate on Shepard, she was rather accepting of the reality I laid on her. She was always the logical type, more so than most Turians, and was a sucker for her family. Even if I had been deadbeat to her, I was still her family, and that made her inclined to believe me. Family or no, however, the proof was undeniable . When I finished my talking, I simply sat there in my chair across from her, letting the words sink in. It had been nearly three hours since I had started, and no doubt it was a lot to take in at once. The silence across the room was heavy, and filled with a sort of nervous tension that more words would only amplify. At times like that, the best remedy is simply to let it soak in, and not try to advance. It's like trying to mix things together that aren't' fully dissolved first; the more you try, the more pieces get left behind.

Eventually, she looked up from her stupor. Her body was gentle, her movements slow and steady, but her eyes… they said everything that she couldn't find words for. She was the first of many that would give me that look, but it never got any easier to answer. There aren't any words to answer a plea like that, only action. Action, I believed, was the only thing that mattered when it came to the Reapers. Maybe that was why I found myself at odds with so many in that time, simply because of the lack of action. What so many saw as an empty threat, I saw as a harrowing reality.

"Garrus… what do we do?"

"We fight, Solana. That's all we can do. I came here to convince the Hierarchy to do just that."

"What makes you think they will listen, when the Council has been denying this for all these years?"

"Because I plan on making them listen, Sol. Dad is still on good terms with the Primarch, and if anyone can get me near his influence, it's him."

"It's one hell of a gamble, Garrus. If you thought I was pissed before…"

"It's all we can do. We've been shut out of every major military in the galaxy, and the only person who could actually make a difference in all of this is being locked away on Earth. It's just me now, and I'll be damned if I go down without a fight."

From behind Solana, a dark figure moved out from the other room. How long he had been standing there, I had no idea, but the fact that I hadn't noticed him before now had me kicking myself. I jumped from my chair, pulling my sidearm up and activating my combat suite. The last thing I needed that day was an assassin trying to off my family.

"I couldn't agree more… Son."

"Dad?"

When the figure was fully in the light, I clearly recognized him. My father was present now, standing at ease behind Solana, his hand on her shoulder. Easing up, I holstered my pistol, but didn't sit back down right away. He had hid himself for a reason, whatever it was.

"How long… How long have you been here?"

"Long enough to know that you need my help. Your last call had me worried , and your silence led me to believe you to be dead… but I've heard about your little adventures from your sister, and there was quite a good amount of detail that you managed to forgo, Garrus."

"Well, you never know who might be watching an unsecured channel…"

"I don't blame you, Garrus, I would have done the same thing. That, however, isn't what matters right now. You need my help to get the Hierarchy moving to mobilize against the Reapers."

"Y-yes! That's exactly what I need. If we don't do something soon-"

"Then we all burn. I remember the damage Sovereign did to the Citadel, I saw it firsthand after it fell. Trying to imagine that, a billion-fold… It brings me no measure of comfort."

"So… You'll help me?"

"What, are you brain dead? Of course I will. I originally hid my presence, thinking that you were just stopping in on another one of your 'missions', but when I began to listen… This is a side of you that I've never seen, Garrus. Whatever happened out there, it changed you, for better…"

He moved across the room to me, reaching up to my face and running a hand across my scars.

"...And for worse. Sure, you still sound like the impatient, gungho child that I tried to bring up through C-sec, to some degree, but I see a kindred spirit within you, one that guides you. So long as you have that… I don't think I will need to worry, Garrus."

"Dad…"

Hearing him say those things to me, after all of this time of him thinking I was just some runaway thug, I didn't have anything to say to that. In a matter of minutes, I had somehow managed to erase years of tensions between the two of us. I wasn't sure how it was possible, but I didn't argue either.

With one soliloquy, I had managed to simultaneously sway my father to my cause and clear my name with the rest of the family in one fell swoop. I didn't quite know what he meant when he said that my kindred spirit would guide me, not right away. It would be a long time before I understood the meaning of those words, not until long after he was gone. Solana still remembers that day well, and always tells it as the day that our family was made whole again.

I think on that day a bit differently. I think of it as the day that Palaven's hope was ignited.

It took some time, but with enough yelling and enough tenacity the Hierarchy finally caved and awarded me a task force to organize in preparation for the Reapers. It was token, but that was by far more than I could have called inadequate. I was given command over supply lines, currency troves, pretty much anything related to the military that didn't involve manpower and materiel. I did with it what I could, going off of my knowledge of what Shepard had relayed back to me. In the six months that I had, I managed to bring the Turian fleets into a state of alert, and had centralized the majority of supplies on Palaven. If what Shepard told me was correct, then it would be a mad rush by the Reapers for the home systems, and nothing less. With what I was given, I made sure that when the fight came home we would have the will and the way to last just a bit longer. My mother, in her dying breaths, couldn't have been more proud.

I felt like making a difference with what I was doing. For once, I left like I was helping people live instead of die. Of course, when the Reapers started beaming the galaxy images of Vallum burning to the ground at their hand, any conception of preparation that I'd had dissolved into nothing. Before long, I was getting reports that the Reapers were within a system's reach of Palaven, and the Hierarchy mobilized in earnest. Around the same time, the Primarch realized that I had been right all along, and needed me to advise forces on strategy. Instead of standing behind a monitor looking at supply logistic reports, I was standing before the most decorated officers in the Hierarchy, telling them how to keep their men from dying. The shift was drastic and swift, leaving me little time to argue, but it never did feel right that I was a leader. I was a rogue at heart, following my own orders, not giving them. Yet, no matter how I felt about it, there I was, keeping the Hierarchy together, one decision at a time.

By the time they hit Menae, I was a regular five star general. Never looked the part, to be sure, but I played it as well a I could. I went up there thinking that I was going to help us win, but seeing the Reapers in force made me realize victory wasn't the goal to strive for; survival was. In front of me, Turians huddled in foxholes for clicks on end, choking on vaporized blood and ash while above me Palaven burned a sickly yellow. I was sandwiched between two realms of suffering with no way out. All I could do was resign myself to advise the commanding officers on strategy, and hope it would be enough. We were fighting a losing battle, and the time I had worked so hard to buy was running out fast.

Then came Shepard to save the day.


	2. Chapter 2

I suppose this is the part where I get to talk about Shepard. I could go on for days, but for the sake of time I'll keep it to a manageable amount.

She was… one hell of a woman, far from anything humans have ever managed to or will ever produce. She was a soldier beyond comparison, a biotic that could have ripped anyone in half if given a reason to, and a damn good shot. She even managed to beat me in a sniping contest. No, seriously, she did. I didn't even hold back the third time. Funny thing is, she spent more time behind the barrel of a Scimitar than any sniper rifle in the galaxy.

When I look back on my time with her, I would say that I really began to get attached just before our attack on Ilos. She had made it clear I was her go to choice for combat and wanted me around whenever I possibly had a chance. She made frequent trips down to the cargo bay to speak with everyone down there, but always saved me for last, and spent the longest time talking about whatever the hell she happened to be curious about. Call it classical psychology, but the more she came around the more at ease I felt, and eventually the more my heart began to open to her. She never did tell me if she intended for that to happen, but I didn't have the gall to question her motives. Even if she hadn't chosen me, I would have treasured the time she spent with me like it was the first and only thing that mattered in the universe. Ilos was really the first time I felt like my life was in danger, so having my time with her made me feel… happy, I would say.

Just before we made the jump through the Mu relay, she came down to the bay one last time to talk with everyone before we loaded into the Mako. I was about to jump in myself when she held me back. With a small, sheepish grin on her face she told me that no matter what happened, picking me up from C-sec had been one of the best decisions of her life.

It was no wonder that I lost myself after she was killed. I was on Palaven, not the Normandy, when she died at the hand of the Collectors. The Normandy wasn't declared destroyed until days after the attack but that didn't stop the news from traveling like wildfire across the galaxy in a matter of hours. In the bar I was occupying, all I could see was the same message. "Alliance hero Anna Shepard presumed killed in action." I didn't break down right away, was too drunk by that time to take it seriously. I wasn't even sure if I had read the words right. The next morning, when the same messages kept on playing all over the plazas, I lost it. I remember collapsing in the middle of the street, then crawling into an alley to wallow in my grief. Turians don't normally cry in response to emotional stressors, only in extreme circumstances of trauma, but I was certain that 'extreme' didn't even begin to cover what I felt. I never have been quite as bad since that day and I won't ever forget the feeling of anger and pain seeping out of every pore and orifice on my body. You… you _can't_ forget that kind of soul crushing agony. Even if you ever get over it, the wound it tears through you never fully closes.

No one bothered to comfort me, no one even asked if I was okay. I didn't need or want their sympathy, just to be left by myself. I thought that I had known what it was like to be alone before, but nothing could ever compare to how alone I felt after Shepard's death. I thought it was all a joke, that Shepard wouldn't let it end that easily, that she would have had a plan to make it out. I was blind to reason, lost to consolation, and more than eager for a chance at taking revenge. I think I wanted revenge more than anything, but when you don't know who your enemy even is, it's kind of a loose concept. That left me needing to shoot at nearly anything resembling a criminal.

I spent the better part of two years trying to expel my rage through the barrel of a sniper rifle. I adopted an alter ego, Archangel, to try and make it seem like I was feared the same way Shepard was. I wanted to command with presence alone like she could, I wanted to be able to threaten someone to the point where they would throw themselves at my feet to grovel. I took my inspiration from everything I observed from Shepard during our missions. She was ruthless, got results, and I wanted to be the same.

Right about now Shepard must sound like an absolute bitch. Don't get me wrong, she had the potential, and boy could she use it. However, that side of her was mostly reserved for people that she was pointing a gun at as well. To me and the rest of the crew, she was one of the most comforting and resourceful women in existence. She expected results in return, but we could more than provide them. During my time as Archangel, I followed Shepard's model of practice and it served me well. My squad and I were ruthless and effective, but wouldn't dare try to pull something over on each other, the key exception here being the snake, Sidonis.

I funneled my anger into my weapons, and my grief into my words. Together, they formed the enforcer of Omega that Shepard eventually sought out to fight her assailants after her revival.

Spirits, when I first saw her after those long, bitter years I thought my heart was going to explode. I spotted the N7 logo on her armor through my scope across a bridge, and I nearly shot the guy following behind her. Not the best introduction I could have made to Zaeed, but he seemed to be proud of my alcohol choices at the very least. With her around I got sloppy, likely because I didn't have much time to process the fact that she was brought back from the dead, and ended up taking volley of gunship fire to the face. Fairly sure that the only reason I survived that fight was because I knew that someone would be waiting for me in the recovery room. For the first time in two years, I felt like I had a reason to live that didn't involve blasting my way through thugs.

Shepard had saved me twice by that point in my life. She had rescued me from the monotony and restriction of life at C-sec, and then come back from the dead to save me from myself on Omega. To say that I loved her beyond reason was an understatement. For a time I kept that to myself, wondering if it was even right for me to have that kind of feeling before a damned suicide mission, let alone for someone like Shepard. I was scared that I would end up scaring away the only person in my life that seemed to give a damn, my only friend. Being told that the only reason you were alive enough to fall in love was because of cybernetics and experimental techniques sure puts a damper on your romantic drive, as well. My scars ended up serving me quite well when it came to Shepard. It took time for me to work my way back to the comfort zone I had occupied with her before, but she didn't resist me. In fact, by the time I was feeling like a person again Shepard was making her intentions very clear.

"We could test your reach… and my flexibility" were the words she first used when she approached me, and it would be wrong of me to say that I was anything but floored. I had never expected Shepard would actually feel the same way I felt about her, but for some reason I was hesitant to make anything drastic of it. My stunned state of mind didn't let me say all of the things that I wanted to say to her then and there, and all I could muster was "There's nobody in this galaxy I respect more than you." Spirits, I was kicking myself over that for weeks after the fact, and for all the build up Shepard had put into it, that was all I could offer up. Granted, she did look rather smug with herself as she wandered back out through the door, but I would be horrible liar if I said there wasn't more that could have gone into that conversation.

In short, I thought of Shepard as my hero. I loved her, with all of the power I had in me, and I made it my mission to make sure that she made it out of that war because if I had to live even another day without her I was certain that I wouldn't be able to carry on.

Seeing her on Menae fucked with me almost as easily as her first advances on me. The fact that she was there meant something was wrong, simply because the Alliance never sent her unless the fate of something big rested in her hands. But, her mission be damned I was glad to see her breathing and walking at the same time given the state of Earth. How she had escaped wasn't important and neither was her reason for being there, for all I was concerned. Fate had brought her back to me, and I wasn't about to lose her again. Not to her mission, not to the Reapers… not to anything. If they wanted her, they would have to pry her from my cold, dead talons.

I had taken up position on a high ledge guarding the command center for Menae before she arrived, and once I saw that N7 logo gliding across the battlefield again, I dropped everything. I don't think I've sprinted so fast since then, to be honest. By the time I made it back to the main command console, she was already there talking to General Corinthus. I'd made contact with him on the way, and he told me that Shepard was here in search of a Primarch. Ascending the ramp, I heard her voice bound across the shelter, just like it always did.

"...-on't care who, as long as they can get us the Turian resources we need."

Not wanting to interrupt anything, I waited for a moment,deciding that the silence offered by the general was my best chance at making a smooth entrance.

"I'm on it, Shepard." I said, moving slowly up the ramp towards her. "We'll find you the Primarch."

Lavender eyes I could get lost in followed my approach, tracking my every move, and the small smile that I saw escape her composure was enough to make those months apart all worth it. I could tell that she felt the same way I did, her body motions indicating some kind of nervousness that wasn't there a minute ago. I didn't exactly try to hide my excitement either, my mandible going crazy when I finally came face to face with her.

"Garrus!"

"Vakarian, sir! I didn't see you arrive" the general remarked, falling into attention.

"At ease, General."

I holstered my rifle, mirroring Shepard's movement and moving closer to her. My gaze locked on her face where her resurrection scars once resided, now blended together to form a relatively normal surface. Some of the marks had never fully dissolved, but to my eye they only added to her look. The scars thing went both ways.

"You're… alive… oh thank God. I knew the universe wouldn't be that cruel…"

She stuck her hand out hoping to get a handshake out of me, but I took it a bit further. I stole her hand and wrapped it around my waist, pulling her in close to me and leaning down for a kiss. She resisted for a moment, but _only_ that long. When we were in each other's embrace… everything felt right. I got to feel those warm, soft lips on my face that I had missed for all that time, and smell the soft scent of conditioner in her bright blonde hair. In that shitstorm of a day, nothing else mattered but that moment.

She shook in my arms, trembling on slightly. I wasn't sure what emotion stood behind that shaking, but I knew that it was fueled by her heart.

She broke away after a few seconds, most likely wanting to salvage the shreds of professionalism that remained after my break in character. The deep blush that remained on her paler than usual cheeks told me that my mission was accomplished.

"Now that you're here I'm more than alive, Shepard. Besides, I'm hard to kill, you should know that."

"Right… good to see you again. I thought you'd be on Palaven?"

"Well if we lose this moon, we lose the whole damn system, and I'm the closest thing we have to an expert on Reaper forces so I'm… advising."

" I see. Well then…" Shepard began, eyeing me sheepishly and relaxing her stance. "Care to advise me on who we're after here?"

"Oh that's easy. Did some looking on my own on the way over here, and heard you're looking for a Primarch. Well, we know who to get; General Adrien Victus."

"Victus… that name's crossed my desk." sounded a voice to the left. Liara stepped forward, offering a handshake to me in the same way as Shepard.

"Liara! Glad to see we have someone informed here. You know of him?"

"Yes, I do. He is a galvanizing figure in the Turian Hierarchy and very popular with the troops. However, he faces a very negative reputation for risky tactics with the command structure. Seeing him in control will be very interesting."

"How risky are we talking here, Garrus?"

"Well, for starters, he found a Salarian spy ring on Taetrus, but let them and the separatists wear each other out instead of assaulting them the first chance he got. His plans work, but a lot of people think his luck's gonna run out soon enough. Just this morning, for example-"

Interrupting me was Shepard's omni-tool with an incoming message. She answered it, with Joker on the other line sounding quite anxious.

"Can't this wait, Joker? We're in the middle of a war zone."

"We've got a situation on the Normandy, Commander, it's like she's possessed. Shutting down systems, powering up weapons… I can't find the source."

"I need the Normandy on standby for extraction, this isn't the time. Find what's wrong and fix it, asap."

"Aye, Commander. We'll do what it takes."

Cutting her feed to Joker, she turned to Liara.

"They're gonna need help on this, I think. Go back and see what you can do."

"On it, Shepard."

Liara departed from there, leaving Shepard and I alone. She hadn't brought anyone else with her, which was an unusual deviation from her tried and true squad composition, but given the fact that she was in the middle of the Reaper war I wasn't about to go and point it out.

"Garrus, you were saying something about this morning?"

"Yes, just earlier today I was fighting alongside Victus south of here, but we split when he went to go bolster a flank. Could be anywhere by now."

"We're trying to raise him, Commander" noted Corinthus, still staring at the screen before him, rapidly typing away.

"Well, until we know where he is, I say we go looking. Care to tag along, Garrus?"

She took the words right out of my mouth. Donning a smile, my rifle returned to my hands, locked and loaded.

"Are you kidding? I'm right behind you."

Shepard nodded, not entirely focusing on my response, instead looking out into the battle behind us. A Reaper stood towering above some poor fools below it, decimating something I was sure.

"Heh… Look at that, Shepard. They want my opinion on how to stop _that_. Six months ago I barely knew how to file a tax return, and now I'm being asked how to save billions of lives…"

While I looked up in dismay, Shepard's hand slipped its way into mine. Bringing my attention back to reality, I looked down at her. Those pools of divine color stared into my hollow gaze, trying their best to calm me. I knew it hurt her as much as it did me, but unlike her I didn't have the willpower to avoid complaining about it.

"You've done what you could, Garrus. They're lucky to have you on hand. Without you, I'm sure they would be hopeless right now. I know I would be."

If Turians could smile, I think that is what I would have been doing then and there. In a way, we were both cynical people but with one major difference between us; Shepard knew how to pick out the silver lining of anything, while all I saw way grey.

"I would hope so, or else my impression on you would have been dishearteningly shallow. Now then, I believe we have a Primarch to find. I'll take you to where I last saw him."

"Alright, lead on."

* * *

"I don't like this any more than you do, Primarch, but it needs to be done."

Having a Turian aboard the Normandy wasn't anything new, as far as I knew, but having Turian military command there was something that made more than a few crew members on edge.

"Shepard, I appreciate you saving my hide back on Menae, but that doesn't mean that I'm giving up on Palaven. This war summit you're pining for… how much faith do you have in it?"

"Enough to leave Earth to make it happen, sir."

The Primarch turned back to the hologram in front of him. His downward gaze conveyed the regret and disdain for the situation that his tone so easily did.

"Good, you're going to need it, because I want to Krogan there."

"What?!"

"You heard me. Palaven and Earth are both on their way to becoming burial grounds for billions of people, and I don't think now is the time for petty animosity. We need the Krogan, without them we all burn. Now isn't the time for by-the-book strategy, we need every advantage we can get."

Shepard and I stood silent at his demand, unsure what to make of it. The Turians and the Krogan had been at each other's throats for a millennia, and I wasn't sure if now was the time to try and make nice. Two years ago, maybe, but now…

"I understand. I'll get the Krogan emissary to that summit as soon as he can. Let's hope he'll be more open to talks than we think."

With a solid nod Shepard wandered off, leaving the Primarch and I alone in the CIC. What the engineers had managed to do to the Normandy was impressive, made the ship feel more like a floating war room than a frigate. As I curiously began to inspect everything around me, Victus popped up from behind and turned my attention to him.

"Garrus, I need to know… where do you stand in all of this?"

"Well, quite honestly sir, I think we're fucked. The Krogan are likely too bitter to offer any kind of help to us, and even if they do the Salarians and Asari wouldn't think of working alongside them. Everyone simply has too much emotion and personal opinion on this for it to be effective."

"I share your sentiment… but not your enthusiasm. I need to know that we've at least exhausted our options before we give up hope. Regardless of the outcome all possibilities must be explored… and another thing, if you would indulge me."

"Sir?"

"You and the commander... Is that something that I should take into account?"

Flustered, I stepped back from him for a moment, not exactly trying to hide my embarrassment but not trying to go all mushy in front of him either.

"Shepard and I… to be honest I'm not sure where we stand. There _is_ something, but I'm not quite sure how to put it into words. We've had a lot of time apart, and I'm not sure…"

"I see. Well, in either regard I've become aware that you are much more suited to special operations than military coordination and planning. I'm giving you leave to serve under Shepard, if that is what you wish Vakarian."

"Sir! Nothing would make me happier, but what about-"

"Oh, don't worry", he interrupted, holding up a hand. "I'm not done with you yet. So long as you're alive, I'll need your expertise on the Reapers. However, I know that you can make a hell of a lot more difference if you're out there with her. Just do me a favor; keep her alive. Something tells me that if we lose her, we're all done for."

"A-aye sir! Don't worry, I will."

"Good. Dismissed soldier, go get some rest. You've earned it."

Aside from the standard salute here and there, the Primarch didn't say anything else to me until after that war summit. His mind was likely overloaded with the sudden change in scenery, and responsibilities, that he had suddenly been forced to take on. Adrien was a good man, and an amazing soldier. His tenure as Primarch was probably one of the most colorful stories in Turian war history. He made a lot of people proud in the coming weeks, and no one doubted his claim that Shepard was key to that war. Without her we would have been dead before the Reapers even showed up to the front door.

After our little talk, I figured that my best source of focus would probably lay in the main battery. Calibrations were a specialty of mine, and I was sure someone, somehow, had managed to throw off my numbers from the collector mission. If there was ever a time that I felt at peace, it was running the numbers on particle acceleration gradients. Well, there's also when I had my arms around Shepard, but that one was a bit more… high maintenance.

Of course, I didn't need to wait for either one, as Shepard was already standing at the console in the main battery by the time I got there. Walking in and seeing someone besides me at the controls, it was spooky, to be honest.

"Shepard? Uh… what are you doing?"

Turning around, she greeted me with one of the most glaring stares I have ever seen come from those eyes. She didn't even say anything to me as she started eerily moving towards me, almost tripping over herself with each step.

"Shepard? You okay?"

She continued to ignore my words, instead persisting in her aggressive, disoriented advance. I was pinned against the door before long, and every attempt I made to open it were met with the negative blips from the door, reading " _Access Denied"._

"Garrus Vakarian…"

The malice that rolled off her tongue genuinely got me scared. I had seen Shepard angry before, but never at me, and never like this. I didn't know what to do besides stand there as she approached, slowly but surely.

When she got close enough, I felt my collar dragged down to her eye level, leaving me bent down to meet her equally.

Before I had a chance to ask for an explanation, pain exploded in my face as her fist connected with it at a speed I didn't think possible. She let go in the middle of the punch, sending me sprawling on the floor. I never did figure out if I got a concussion from that punch or not, since Shepard barely gave me any time to recover.

My collar was seized by that violent hand once again, this time pulling me off of the ground to face her. Words failed me as I met her angry eyes, most likely because I was too dazed to even remember where I was in that moment. All I could think about was the fact that I might have a few more scars to add to the collection.

" _That_ … that was for your little show on Menae. And _this…_ "

She nearly whispered these words to me, my mind barely making sense of them. She threw my mind into chaos even further as she leaned in to drive home a passionate, fiery kiss on me. She held me, suspended before her as I hung there helplessly at her mercy. Not that I didn't enjoy it, but I would have preferred being able to use my legs when this was all happening.

"... was for coming back to me, you damn rebel."

"Hehe, that's funny… for a second there I thought you might've been mad…"

"Yeah… you thought right. I appreciate the attention, but do try to control yourself when I'm around high ranking military officials, will you?"

"C-can do, Shepard. Now, is this the part where you tell me it's not going to work out? Because I can always go out and get a few new scars, if it improves my chance-"

"Dumbass! Do I need to repeat myself?"

Frustratingly repeating her display for me, she leaned in again and planted another kiss on me. This time, she went so far as to go for tongue action. She would regret that later, when her mouth started to get a little too dry, but cross species contact always comes with risks. I don't think she could have cared a bit in the moment.

"Good enough an answer for you, Garrus?"

"Hell, the first time was good enough for me, I just wanted to see if you wanted to go for round two."

"Keep talking like that, and I'll be happy to repeat the first part of this little reunion. Now then, on to the good part."

She released my collar, using her free hand to quickly shed her N7 sweatshirt and camisol. Standing over me, half naked, she brought her hand down to me.

"I've gone six months without any action, and I'd call this as good a chance at catching up as any. I'd say now is a good time for some… _Calibrations._ "

Turian eyes aren't that big to begin with, but I could imagine they were larger than grenades as i took her hand.

"Well then, I was planning on doing some anyway, seems like a good chance to get them in."

"Oh, you'll be getting them in all right. That is, if your aim is still good?"

"You know it."

"Good. Now, shut up and fuck me, already!"

Trying my hardest to suppress a giggle, I rose to tower above her again, putting both hands on her narrow, muscular shoulders. Before things got too heated, there was one thing I wanted to do. My head fell forward, resting softly on the hair that covered Shepard's forehead. Turians couldn't exactly kiss the way other species did, with the lack of flexible facial tissues and all. A simple forehead touch was more than enough for many of us.

"Aye aye, ma'am."


	3. Chapter 3

"You know, maybe steamrolling the Dalatrass in front of the Primarch and Wrex isn't the _best_ way to get the Salarians in line with us. Just a thought, here."

I had missed watching Shepard in action. Seeing her tear into someone with that brutally wretched side of hers was just one of the perks of my position, and her most recent altercation failed to disappoint. Shepard was seething more so than usual after this one in particular, no doubt tired of all the politicians in the galaxy.

"Save it. I'm in no mood for this kind of bullshit, and I wasn't about to let her get the last word. People like her are the kind of vermin that get to scuttle around like mice until someone picks them up by their tails and shoves a block of poison into their conniving little-"

"Woah, woah, easy Shepard. I get it." I consoled, being sure to nonchalantly create a larger gap between us as we walked back to her cabin. I had thought our little catch up session earlier on would have relieved some of the tension she carried with her, yet her meeting served to reveal how deeply entwined her stressors really were. I worried for her well being more than anything, but being within grapple range had caused me more than one accidental punching bag session.

"The last few months have made me… more than a little bitter, Garrus." she told me as we approached the elevator, our backs illuminated by the soft electronic glow of the galaxy map. She held on to her icy demeanor as she spoke, but softened the edge on her words to me, slightly at least. She barely said anything to the duo at the security checkpoint, leaving them more than a little crestfallen, I'm sure. Hell, she was even starting to depress me, if it was possible to make me any more cynical. The walls of the retrofitted Normandy glistened dully as we progressed, stripped of their panels in many places and lined with exposed wiring. Something told me that they weren't exactly finished with the old girl when they departed, but I wasn't about to complain as long as the wired didn't break off and electrocute me.

"Well sure, I doubt it could have been anything more than insulting for you to have handcuffs and accusations thrown at you as soon as you stepped off of the damned drydock. Then on top of all that being told, after years of trying to warn everyone, that your planet was going to burn alone… I would want to shove a dull knife into any living thing that walked within a meter of me."

"Welcome to my inner machinations, Garrus. Every minute of my existence is deciding whether or not to mutilate whatever's standing in front of me."

"Well, I've been on the safe end of that debate, so I would say I'm rather lucky. The Council, though, they ought to watch their backs if they have any plans of being alive for much longer."

The lift deposited us in the smaller intercessory hallway of Shepard's cabin, firmly sliding closed behind us as we exited and returning to a lower level. Shepard never did enjoy the isolation she had from the crew on the SR-2, always finding some excuse or another to wander in the off hours, any reason at all to not be alone in her loft. I could tell that she missed the XO office on the main level, but kept her discomfort quiet.

Shepard made a beeline for her bed, with myself close behind, as soon as she saw the lock on the entryway activate. Free falling onto the mattress beneath her, she sighed with nuclear force and spread her arms wide, taking in the incredibly drab ceiling above her. Still shaking my head, it wasn't long before I unconsciously followed her lead and landed with a noticeably heavier impact right beside her. Giggling in the aftershocks of our launches we both stared into the emptiness that resided above us, illuminated only by the small lamp beside us and the eerie glow of the kinetic barriers just outside the ship shining in through the glass. Neither of us bothered to speak, but we both knew that the other was trying to formulate a conversation. The silence we held in those haphazard moments was often more important to us than whatever it was we were trying to say. Often, but not always.

"... Shepard…" I managed to croak out after what felt like an eternity of staring at nothing in particular, still lying on our backs.

"Hmm? What is it?"

"I know… the last few months haven't been good to you. The last few days, well, they can't have been much better, and I know that you're not always one to get drawn into long talks about this sort of thing-"

"Garrus."

She whispered this to me, leaning into my side, her head softly resting on my shoulder, nuzzling into my neck. Her hand slowly wormed its way into mine, filling the gaps between my digits and flooding my chest with a familiar warmth that only she could provide. Sneakily, she brought a leg across my body, half straddling my hips and half lying beside me, eyes too intrigued with my neck to be occupied anywhere else.

"You're one of the only things I have to live for right now. Anything you have to say, I can listen to it. I'm not some hormone stricken teenager. I _did_ just equivically tell the leader of an entire species to go fuck herself, you know."

"O-oh... Okay then. I, uh, wanted to ask you…"

"Yeeeesss?" she purred, nudging her way further into my various crevices and nooks. It took all of my willpower to not pounce on her then and there, contemplating payback for her little ambush in the battery earlier on.

The beguiling look in her eye threw me off guard, and scattered my thoughts. My composure faltered, and all I could do was stare into her bright mauve orbs, seemingly piercing into my spirit.

"W-well, I _had_ intended on asking you something important, but now all I can manage is... sloppily staring at you and wondering how it is that some renegade Turian managed to catch the eye of the galaxy's saviour."

Her soft laughter seemed to echo through the room, despite its rather compact size. No doubt she was pleased with herself for managing to throw me off guard, as one of the only people capable of doing so.

"I don't see that as an inherently bad thing. Being oogled at instead of being snickered and sneered at is a nice change." With a grunt, she removed herself from my neck and propped her chest onto mine, looking down from the elevated position on my carapace she so enjoyed.

"And who would have the balls to do that within your eyesight?" I asked, tilting my head up to try and catch her gaze again.

Her eyes broke from mine as I said that, losing focus and appearing to be suddenly interested in the exposed tubing behind us. The playful tone of her chatter was beset with a bitter sadness instead. The total 180 flip was surprising, even given her binary expressive pattern. Usually the transition from anger to cool, collected sarcasm took a joke or two.

"More people than I could count. You weren't there, Garrus, back on Earth. Every day, whenever I was in public, the looks that people gave me could _kill_. Hell, I thought that I was the Queen Bitch of the galaxy, but go and massacre an entire system of Batarians, play nice with Cerberus, then come back to tell the tale and everyone thinks you've sold out your species. Instead of Saviour of the Citadel, I was referred to as ' _her'_. I didn't even deserve to be named to my own people…"

"How could they do that to you? If you were Turian, sure the military would likely see you like they do Victus, but at the very least the people would respect the sacrifices you've made for them. You would see it in every move they made near you."

"Humans are different. Our entire history is the story of us finding something to hate and be afraid of. For the majority it was each other, for something as silly as the way we spoke or the color of our skin. Nowadays we have the rest of the galaxy to glare at instead. Yet occasionally it's not that abnormal to see us at each other's throats again. Our capacity for hatred is… scary, Garrus. Makes it easy to imagine why Cerberus is so successful...

Her free hands came around my waist, pulling me closer into her embrace. Her fingers squeezed tightly onto my talons, trembling quietly with a nervous energy.

"Every minute that I wandered through the halls in Vancouver, I felt feared. I looked around me, and all I could see were guises of disgust and disdain. Even Kaidan couldn't look me in the eye when we saw each other. I've felt… sick for so, so long Garrus that I don't even know if I'm alive anymore. I try to feel something, anything but this soul-crushing agony and nothing comes. I still… I still feel like I'm suffocating above Alchera sometimes, staring into the void of space, burning from the inside out, with no one around to save me..."

To anyone else Shepard's voice would have been miniscule, drowned out even by the dull drone of the water tank across the room. Shepard had always been a warrior, a lion in her own right. To see her like this, so small and so defeated, it felt wrong. No one deserved to feel like that, especially not her.

" _It is one of the major tragedies that nothing is more discomforting than the hearty affection of the Old Friends who never were friends"_ I mused, mimicking her diminutive speaking, trying to ease her gloom. Shepard was still new to interpreting the subharmonics Turians use in conversation, but even she must have picked up on the unstable, hollow growl that seemed to drip with muted sorrow that laced every word of the sentence.

"You've been reading Sinclair, you little bookworm. I told you he's good" Shepard whispered. Her grip loosened on my body, her posture relaxing and her shoulders beginning to tremble slightly at the mention of her favourite author.

"He's almost as good at hiding emotion at you are, actually. For someone with your amount of stress, this emotional repression isn't healthy. Shit, for normal people it's unhealthy, for you it might as well be suicide."

"Hey, who was I supposed to tell all of this to, my guards? I wasn't exactly in the position to ask for a psychologist, being possibly the most hated person within a thousand miles of Vancouver."

"I know, I know, but you can't deny that you have a bad habit of doing this."

"You mean just like you have a bad habit of over-analyzing everything I do?"

Shrugging, I looked down into her waiting gaze, one filled with worry and expectation shielded by a feigned playfulness.

"Come on, you can't deny that you love watching me squirm sometimes."

"Guilty as charged. I know I'm a sadistic little bitch, it's just nice to have someone to toy with that doesn't end up dying from a pistol shot after I'm done sassing them."

"Who knows how long you'll have me for? One of these days I might just snap and throw your hamster out the airlock."

" _You wouldn't dare!_ " she threatened, goading me into another chest thumping match. Her habit of avoiding her stress and trying to cover it up showed its face once again. Shepard never was good with her emotions, that much was to be expected from a lifelong soldier with a mean streak and a ruthless reputation, but that didn't mean she was oblivious. There were certainly times when she _wanted_ to talk about how she felt, but they just… didn't really work out. In all the time that I knew her and _especially_ in my time as her partner she had always been skittish with that kind of talk. Sometimes I felt like she just didn't have time for them. Most of her deep inner thoughts were those made in retrospect, and she rarely ever told me of a problem until after it was solved. In that way she was very resourceful… but almost always ended up hurting herself in one way or another. Then again if I had to do the things she did, emotions would seem like a hinderance to me too.

"If you had to say, would you feel worse before or after you spaced your boyfriend?"

That joke earned me a good jab to the ribs, knocking the wind out of me and reminding me once again how damn strong Shepard was. I barely saw her move.

"Make another joke like that and you're sleeping on the couch until shore leave" she growled after her hand resumed its position on my body.

"Too soon?" I sheepishly asked, remembering her sensitivity to that topic.

"No shit, Sherlock. You'd think that you would have a bit more decency than that."

"S-sorry, Shepard. Maybe not the most carefully considered joke."

Neither of us spoke much more beyond that; myself, out of self-loathing embarrassment, and her out of general annoyance and a directed effort to make me writhe from the prolonged silence. Instead of words, we spoke with our bodies, passing pointed squeezes and proddings back and forth. Sometimes, words were simply too much for either of us to handle, and communication between us simply degenerated to the half-assed caresses and assorted stimuli we could inflict on each other.

"Garrus" she finally offered, her hand mindlessly grazing the plates on my forearm.

"Hm?"

"I wanted to thank you."

"For what?" I asked, leaning my head to the opposite side, so as to face her instead of the empty fish tank.

"For being alive. Without you, I'm not sure what I would do. You keep me grounded in ways that I can't even begin to explain. If you ever leave me… I'm not sure what I would turn into…."

For the first time in that conversation, her voice shook with emotion, nearly drowning the words as she offered them. Her words were even layered with something akin to subharmonics, whether intentionally or not. Regardless of intent, they transmitted fear with every passing syllable. The talon I had running through her silky platinum blonde locks halted at this admission of vulnerability, and through instinct moved to her face instead.

"I have an idea, then. Just… keep me close, and I can promise you that nothing bad can happen. After all, you're Shepard, you beat Death at its own game. If I stick close to you, what could go wrong?"

I was certain that I was going to be awarded with another punch for that blissfully ignorant comment, but the display of violence never came. Looking down once again to her, the eyes that normally communicated her powerful, dominating aura were encased in something else. It was ever-changing, not for one millisecond staying the same, shifting between admiration, sorrow, love, and a host of other things that I simply couldn't understand. She didn't speak for minutes on end, instead staring into my eyes without a word. In the time that she did so, I managed to locate the medical stints in her eyes that Cerberus had likely used to prop up her corneas. I was still taking inventory of the features of her iris when she finally broke her gaze with me. Sliding her way forward on my chest, she eventually managed to reach a point where our heads reached equilibrium. Softly, the forehead mere inches away from my face tilted down and came to rest on mine. These moments when she emulated Turian culture were endearing to me, gave me an idea that she cared for me every single bit that she spoke of. It's the little things that I came to love the most from Shepard.

"I love you, Garrus Vakarian. You put your life in my hands, and I put mine in yours. Together, we're unstoppable."

Those words made my mind go blank. She actually _loved_ me? I just couldn't believe it, not right away. Love was the farthest thing from my mind when she was around, being with Shepard just felt… natural. I just couldn't imagine that a word like love would find its way into our lives.

Her confession pulled a rare, heart warming purr from my chest, one that sent Shepard into a small giggle fit. I couldn't help but feel my mandibles twitch at seeing her laugh like that… it was too damn cute.

"Yeah, we are. There _is_ no Shepard without Vakarian."

"Damn straight." she curtly remarked, rising from her straddle, making way to the door, a marked spring in her step.

"Come on, Wrex told me he's got something important for us to work out, and right now I feel like I could beat a Thresher Maw with my bare hands."

"This is Wrex we're talking about, Shepard, knowing him that might be what he wants."

* * *

On Tuchanka, things were worse than I could have imagined. I'd always heard that it was a nuclear wasteland, but it seemed that the Reapers could even that look barren and mangled. Urdnot Wrex, one of the only sane Krogan in the galaxy, had been our friend for years, and having him around made Shepard a little less tense, but that didn't change the fact that he wanted his dues before he would commit his people to help her. He wanted a cure for the Genophage, the biological war crime my ancestors had used to neuter the Krogan, and it was Shepard's mission to make sure no one got in the way of just that. But, the cure itself was still a ways off, and the head of the research team, Mordin Solus, was still making adjustments to the strains he had to make it complete. That left a lot of time to fill.

So, that left the rest of us to run around keeping Tuchanka from imploding or exploding before he was finished. Wrex had been informed of a Turian transport ship crashing planet-side from the Primarch, and sent us in after the crew. The last thing anyone needed these days was an armed brigade of Turians running around Tuchanka in the middle of a Reaper invasion, it was like a kid getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I had asked the Primarch what exactly he was doing there in the first place, but it seemed that even I wasn't privy to that kind of information.

So, in lieu of better options, that left Shepard and I to clean up the mess, as usual. You would think that after two and a half rounds of saving the galaxy, people would begin to realize that our time wasn't exactly expendable, but if anything all it seemed to encourage was a lazy attitude."Oh, don't worry, we'll just wait for Shepard to handle this! She always gets it done!"

Heh, amateurs, all of them… but I digress.

The situation at the crash site was bad. Escape pods scattered in all directions, ancient ruins ablaze with gunfire and, well, regular fire. Reaper troops littering the levels of the construct, and a desperate Turian squad holding out on the total _opposite_ side of the place from us. Oh yeah, this was classic.

The shuttle dropped us off as close as it could, leaving us to do the rest. With a silent grimace, Shepard ordered us onward into the ruins, trying her damndest to remain as undetected as possible. Tumbling over rubble and crawling through gaps in the burning fuselage, we progressed towards the target, all the while trying to have eyes on all angles of contact. The last thing we needed was to be ambushed in a place like that, with no backup and no fast way out. It was a damn killzone if I ever saw one. After minutes of agonizing stealth, we encountered the first patch of survivors, our silence finally broken by the crack of Shepard's biotic charge into a cluster of unaware Cannibals. The grotesque Batarian forms shattered at the impact, body parts and red mist scattering at every possible angle. With an almost bored stance, her Scimitar shotgun extended from her left and decapitated the remaining husk that had lingered next to her.

Needless to say, the Turians across the crevice that separated us were stunned into silence. Without so much as a "thank you" they retreated further into the ruins, leaving us to the silence yet again.

We repeated that rhythm for hours, rounding up all of the still living crew… reporting the loss of the ones that hadn't made it. By the time all of the crew and company had been accounted for, the powerful daylight of Aralakh was creeping over the smog-laden horizon. Even through our armor, the heat was beginning to build overwhelmingly as the sun progressed through the sky. In a clearing not far from the drop zone, the remaining soldiers crowded around each other, all of them wearing the scorn and distrust that they so easily felt in their hearts. Turians were never ones to hide their emotions, and when pushed to the limit what little restraint we were taught was crushed. That left Shepard and I to deal with half of a company of disgruntled, wounded men. Their commander, who turned out to be the Primarch's son, approached us as we neared their rally site, looking eager to talk with us.

"Thank the spirits you came along when you did. I'm Lieutenant Victus, Commander, and I thank you for saving my men, when it seems I wasn't up to the job…" The soldier looked downtrodden, beat and utterly helpless. To me he certainly didn't look like someone with a lot of experience, let alone the capability to lead an entire company. Why the Primarch had sent him, of all the men at his command, was beyond me.

"Status report" Shepard shot at him, leaving no room for debate. "What the hell happened here, Lieutenant?"

"I made a bad call. Reaper forces closed in on us as soon as we made the break in the stratosphere, we had to lose them. Instead of taking our chances and riding it out, I ordered a route through these ruins… but they were waiting for us here, too. We were shot down, and before we even had time to fully evacuate the ship it broke apart, and we scattered. We were pinned and losing ground, until you showed up that is."

"What are you here to do? Before anything else happens I need to know."

Shepard backed her demand with an assertive stance, taking small inches toward him and showing her teeth, a mannerism I thought unique to Turians before I had met her.

"Commander, I know you just saved us and all, but that information is classifie-"

" _Don't talk to me about classified!"_ she screamed at him, reaching forward to take hold of his carapace and reel him closer to her. The seething rage behind every word visibly scared the Lieutenant, his legs going limp in her grasp. The other men in his unit looked to him, but offered nothing more to the situation than pleased glances and judgmental scoffs.

"I serve on the most advanced starship in the galaxy, accompanied by _your_ Father, who happens to be the motherfucking Primarch of the Turian Hierarchy, and happen to have the goddamned Shadow Broker on speed dial! So, if you want to talk about classified, then I suggest you find some other ignorant fuck to do it with, because that won't work on me. Now, I'll repeat myself, out of common courtesy. _What. Was. Your. MISSION?!"_

The last words practically leaked out of her, maybe not intended to be understood themselves but more to be used as a vector for transmitting the dominating aura she wore like a second skin. Encounters like this always gave me chills, no matter how many times I sat back and watched them, but I couldn't help but feel some sympathy for Victus. Getting men killed with risky plays was a considerable offense for our people, and seeing him stare death in the eyes while trying to grapple with that reality couldn't have been easy. Lesser people would be groveling at her feet by then, but he held on to whatever composure he had left like a drowning man to driftwood.

"We… w-we were dispatched on EOD."

"A bomb? Why send this many men for just one explosive? Doesn't make any sense. The Krogan could've handled that much their ow-"

"This wasn't just any bomb, commander. This was… this _is_ a _Ra'Uhtahi_."

"Spirits… there's one here, Lieutenant?!" I spat out, the panic easily accessible in both my subharmonics and my overtone.

"Garrus, did I get something wrong, or did my translator just fuzz out?"

"Shepard, this is _bad_. _Ra'Uhtahi…_ in Turian tongue, it means 'Sun Eater'. The last time one was used, during the Rachni Wars, just one of the damn things was sent through a relay… the whole system turned into a black hole. They were deemed too dangerous to ever use again, and were blacklisted. The word was probably purged from the Extranet, hence the glitch in your translator. To think that there's one here…"

"There has been, sir, for almost a thousand years… and now Cerberus has control of it."

* * *

 _ **Greetings, dear readers, it's Hanji. Over my winter holiday, I got inspired from some other entries I'd read here, and decided to write my own Mass Effect story. I hope I manage to live up to expectations, given that I've been writing for some time now. Cheers, mates, and see you all again soon. o/**_

 _ **P.S if you are searching for good stories to read, fadeIn by tyrantmoves and A Tale of Two Shepards: Saving the Galaxy is a Family Affair by TEAM Shepard are the ones that inspired this story, their quality and depth are out of this world. Highly recommended.**_


	4. Chapter 4

"What the fuck is wrong with you?! You're a Lieutenant and you're telling me that you don't know how to make your men follow you? Are you fucking kidding me?!"

"Hey, you think I like the glares and looks? You think I like having my own men tell me that I'm worthless? No! But the fact remains... Even if I wanted to go through with this… they don't..." Victus admitted to the ground, making the mistake of looking away from Shepard while she was in a bad mood. On any other day that would have been a death sentence, but now, in the middle of all this… well, there isn't quite words to explain that.

"I don't give a fuck what they want to do, _Lieutenant._ You get your ass over there and _make them_ want to, because I am going after this nuke, with or without you. It would be a damn shame if I had to go back to daddy and tell him how much of a cowardly traitor his son-"

"No!" he shouted back, taking a step forward and finally exhibiting something close to anger.

"Well?" she goaded, motioning to the soldiers behind him. "I'm waiting."

Shepard turned from him, leaving him to do what needed to be done, and returned to my side. The two of us took a seat on the nearby rubble, as far from a blaze as we could, and watched him formulate a plan.

"Give me a fucking break. This is pathetic."

"Not everyone has your ability to make someone follow blindly into suicide, Shepard."

"I'm not expecting them to do it willingly, Garrus. They're bound by oath, and the way I see it their opinions don't mean anything. He should know that by now."

"Why not just tell him that, then?" I asked, turning my head to face her but still keeping an eye on the now rallying Victus.

"Soldiers that are already dead before they hit the battlefield are useless. Only way to get results is to make them want to deliver. Sooner he realizes that, the sooner he can recover from this. We need every man we can get."

I accepted her conclusion with a wholesome grunt and a small affirmatory quaver of my subharmonics, then turned my attention to the show before us. Victus stood shouting over his men, throwing down a lone dissenter with a vivid display of martial discipline. This kind of grim analysis was Shepard's specialty, and I knew as well as she did how it worked. War was no place for dead men.

"...Any more questions, maggots?" we heard him yell from across the clearing. The unified, if not entirely convinced response from his men let us know that he had at least secured their allegiance for the mission. Whatever came after that was at the discretion of the Primarch… if any of them managed to live, that is. Victus made his way back towards us, ending our moment of rest laden with grim realities and burning muscles.

"Ten credits says he salutes you before we leave." I whispered.

"Please, he's Turian. You all do that when you don't know what to say. Not taking that one, sorry."

Shrugging off my called bluff, I followed Shepard towards him while doing my best to look professional to Victus. I barely had a formal bone in my body in those days, but I tried, at least sometimes, to look the part of the top brass I was supposed to be.

"Commander, I can't promise anything, but I've at least got them ready to fight. You give the order, and we're where you need us to be."

"Alright then. Get to the nearest staging area and wait for my call. Be ready for anything, Cerberus has been working with some weird shit these days."

"Aye, Ma'am." he answered, saluting with gusto before walking back over to his men.

"See? Told you. Probably wanted nothing more than to get the fuck away from me." she chided as I walked towards our evac shuttle.

"Not everyone seems to be on your side these days. I think it's your new hair, turns people off." I shot back, patting her grimy bun as I approached her backside.

Shepard had traditionally worn a bob before the Omega-4 mission, but in the time I had been with her since then she had switched to a loose bun, with strands loosely hanging down from her temples. She looked like some kind of cheerleader to me, but a damn sexy one. I wasn't about going to complain about the switch.

"Asshole" she murmured, shielding her face from the dust storm the shuttle kicked up. I followed her into it with whatever could be called a smile on my face. Shit like that was what made me value the peace between the bullets. Spirits knew that we needed as much of it as we could get. The war wasn't done with us, not by a longshot.

* * *

"Disarm it! Now!"

"No time, the bypass is DNA-locked. I have to separate the bomb from the housing if we've got a chance."

"Then fucking do it! We'll keep these fuckers occupied" Shepard said as she began a windup for another charge. Before Victus could even answer she was gone, fifty feet away in the middle of a Cerberus squad. Then, a second later, chunks of thick plating flew in all directions, all stained with blood. Behind a barrier, Shepard materialized with a coat of red across her armor. Victoriously, she held up her shotgun and blew a few rounds into the air. She had some serious vendetta against the bastards, and she was taking every chance she could to let loose her vengeance. For nearly an hour she had been blowing them to pieces, more replacing their ranks as we attempted to shut the nuke down.

She had been buying Victus time to write a bypass code for Cerberus' lockdown, but in the end it required a more personal touch.

I hadn't fired a single shot the entire time, instead opting to watch Shepard work from afar. I hadn't seen her like this in some time, not since the night we settled my score with Sidonis. When Shepard was angry, she was a demon of a higher dimension, a being of radiant fury. Turian language barely has any words for the way that Shepard danced throughout the battlefield, but my heart knows that it was one of the reasons I loved her.

"I could use a hand here, Garrus! In case you hadn't noticed, these fucknuts don't seem keen on backing off!"

Shepard finally paused her offensive, cooling down in cover while an Atlas mech rained fire down on her. I threw a few grenades its way, then went to work on Sniping away the bolts on the main compartment. If Shepard could get inside the thing, then this would get a lot more fun…

"Oh, I know. Just enjoying the view is all" I replied over the comms, imagining the kind of expression she was forming.

"Funny, I thought that's what my cabin was for?"

"Uh, guys, it's an open comms channel, just so you know" James pointed out.

"Price you pay for wanting to come with. You seemed kinda touchy about getting left behind last time, but you seemed everything it comes with" I answered back, lining up for another concussive shot on a shielded Cerberus agent.

"Yeah, if I wanted this I'd rather just pay for the holovids and call it a day. Besides, they have a much lower mortality rate."

"Oh, where's the fun in that?"

"Commander!" Victus shot out, intervening in our likely ill-placed banter, "the fuse is jammed in, there's only one way to finish this…"

"Victus, what are you thinking?"

"Sorry, commander, this one's on me."

"Victus?!"

"Say hi to my dad for me…"

Before Shepard and I could move to help, we felt the ground shake underneath us. Looking back, we saw the entirety of the nuke's support structure collapsing. I could've sworn that I saw someone fall, but to this day I don't know if I could trust my eyes.

"Victus!"

Shepard appeared beside me, sprinting towards the cavity the nuke had been dug from. I ran to her side, eager to see the damage below. But, before we could get anywhere, a nasty explosion caught us off guard, throwing us back away from the hole. When I caught wind of myself again, the smoke from the crater blocked out any kind of view we could have gotten. Instinctively I looked to Shepard until I saw the look of shock on her face.

"He… he pulled a fucking FMJ on me… motherfucker." I heard her breathe out. I had no clue what she was talking about, but the fact that she had no real words to say meant that she was as in shock as I. I found my gaze drawn back to the crater again, a fresh grave for a new casualty of the war.

"Hey, Lola, what the hell was that explosion? We still got Cerberus to deal with, and they ain't stoppin' anytime soon!"

"I… yeah, I copy. Just… give me a second."

" _Dios,_ just hurry! There are only so many Turians here to help out, y'know?"

The sounds of the battle behind us seemed to drown out as Shepard moved to the crater herself. Slowly, she kneeled down and looked into the smoke billowing into her face. The wisps of her hair blew aggressively in the drafts around us, the heat of the fire below still bright on her face. Her face, really, was probably the only thing on Tuchanka that could have looked serene.

"Another one… just gone. How many more, Garrus?"

"I can't answer that. No one can."

"We can be damned sure that it won't be a small number, though. So many lost, forgotten… when does it end?"

"When we take every single one of these bastards back to Hell, where they belong."

She looked to me with a dead gaze, a kind of perplexed contemplation unbecoming of her masking her emotion. She didn't look like she was feeling anything, confused if you really had to pin a word on it. I didn't like it.

"Hey… we should go finish things up. There will be time for this later."

"Yeah, I guess so."

It hurt to brush off her feelings in the face of something like this, but most of me felt that keeping Victus' men alive would be something he'd want.

Human emotions are such a fragile thing, they never make sense and they're never any kind of cohesive form. Turnians, we're much more cut and dry, we can always put a pin on whatever it is we're trying to get out of ourselves, but Humans… they might as well be left with the keys to a city and told to go find the needle somewhere inside. It was a nightmare, I still don't have any idea of how Shepard kept herself together.

We all had no idea of what was really going on in her head, and that was the scary part.

...

"You're kidding me! All this time, that shit was under our damn noses? Heh, the clan's gonna get a kick out of this when I tell 'em."

"Wrex, I won't lie, you're taking this too well. I just told you that there was a nuke in the ancestral capital of your world laid by the fucking _Turians_ , for God's sake, and you're laughing? I'm so confused."

Wrex grunted happily across the table, looking rather smug with himself. Leaning forward, he lowered his voice and spoke.

"Keep it that way, will ya? To be honest, I'm about ready to behead that Primarch for keeping it all so lowkey, especially considering how it was handled… but, I know that he owes us now, big time. If anything, it'll be a rallying cry for my people to fight. All I can say now is thanks for not letting those damned Cerberus Pyjaks from doing any worse."

Shepard just shook her head in frustration. I doubt that was really the answer she wanted out of him, but neither I nor she were willing to push the matter any further. It had been a long day for both of us, and the last thing she needed was an angry argument with Wrex.

"I guess... So, how's Mordin doing with Eve?"

"The way he talks, hard to say, but he says that he'll be ready to test the cure soon enough, and all he needs now is a… 'tissue sample' to finalize it. The way he said it, I think he meant from me."

"So, what's wrong with that?" I offered.

"Think about what we're dealing with here. Genophage, reproduction, fertility… it's gonna hurt like hell, to say the least."

Wrex shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he said the words, both Shepard and I looking at each other with more than a hint of snark.

"Well, anything that helps, I guess. We'll be in the cabin if you need us, Wrex. Keep us up to date."

"You got it, Shepard. Keep not dying, if you could."

She nodded curtly and began to walk away until she noticed I wasn't following her. Turians don't have very many options when it comes to communication outside of talking, besides subharmonics, which left me very little to express my worry for her.

"I… shit, I knew this would happen."

"What's wrong, Garrus? Cat got your tongue?"

"Ha ha. I'd like to see one try and get past these teeth. They'd have a hell of a time."

"Doesn't answer my question, but it's still nice to see you crack a joke every now and then."

"We can keep talking in the main battery, then. I've been told our last drop knocked the hydraulics out of alignment, and I might need a hand."

"Of fucking course, you and your goddamn calibrations. Fine, lead on."

Finally standing from the table, the two of us left a confused Wrex behind and made our way to the elevator. She kept a solid eye on me most of the time, looking to her side more frequently than necessary. In the elevator, she held a solid stare on my chest, but couldn't meet my eyes. She totally ignored every crewmember as they saluted her on the way to the battery.

When I heard the lock engage behind me, I spun around as quickly as I could to avoid her getting the drop on me, but she just stood there, staring at me.

"What? Think I'm gonna try and get the jump on you again, Garrus?"

"A good soldier learns from past mistakes, Shepard. Juuust keeping on my toes."

"Silly, silly Turian, I swear…"

I turned away from Shepard, remembering why it was that we came in here in the first place. I went over to the right side maintenance panel, entered the access code on my Omni-tool, and looked at the complex wiring within.

"Spirits, what did they do to you, old girl? Everything in here is a mess…"

"Well, the Normandy wasn't exactly in perfect order when the attack on Earth kicked off. Wouldn't be surprised if they were more concerned with the drive core in the moment."

"Makes sense, I guess. Still, it's like every little tweak I made was thrown out the window."

"What flies in Cerberus and what flies in the Alliance is a little different. I'd imagine your 'tweaks' violated something or another. So, what do you need help with to get it going again?"

"Tools, time… and a little bit of a distraction every now and then, if you're game?"

"You know it. I'll grab your kit. Still third shelf on the lower rung?"

"Yep, same as always. I'll take a look at the power wiring first. If anything is off there, anything I do will get thrown out the airlock the minute we take a hit."

Without further ado, I got to work. She'd helped me a few times before, so she knew her way around the stuff well enough, but she still was keen on simply watching and letting me do the work. The company was endearing enough for me, and an extra hand to hold in the omni gel when you needed it was welcome for any technician.

"Here, get cracking _Gunnery Officer_."

"Heh, I kind of missed that title, to be honest. It was nice when I was actually useful and not just a showpiece."

"You were probably the most annoying showpiece they could ask for."

"You're not wrong. At some point, I was pretty sure that all of my messages to the requisitions office were getting deleted by the VI, just out of principle."

"Not surprising, considering everyone thought we were raving lunatics until a few weeks ago."

I began to give a small affirmatory laugh when a stray wire caught me off guard, sending a nasty shock through me.

"Ah! Damn it, that hurt."

"What's wrong?!"

"It's nothing, just a stripped wire is all… ugh, Spirits, that was one hell of a shock. Whoever did this to my baby is gonna get my rifle shoved up their ass sooner or later."

"Careful, I think I'm the only one allowed to do that without a warning on this ship."

Shepard took my hand away from my chest, bringing it to her face for inspection. With a small click of her tongue, she surrendered it back to me.

"Not too bad a burn, you'll live."

"Heh, thanks. Although, I am disappointed that I won't get to tell you the story of the scar now."

We sat in a small silence for a while after her chuckles wore off, totally aware of each other's intents but unable to really grasp at what to say. I absentmindedly fiddled with wires in the console, not even sure what to do. Normally Shepard filled gaps like these with her natural extroverted cheer, but this time it was different. I might not have been the most socially adept, but even I knew that silences like these were intentional. It seemed she knew that as well.

"So… what exactly had you so worked up that you were staring me down without a word to say? Usually, you just come out and say what you're thinking."

"That… ugh, spirits, to be honest, I still don't have the right way to say it. That's why I wasn't bringing it up, I wanted to buy some time…"

"Well, then don't have it be sensical. I might be a grunt, but I do know how to read people. It's kind of part of being human, really.

I looked up at her, mystified. "You really think that a _grunt_ could do all of this?" I asked, signaling to the ship around me. "The Citadel, the Collector Base, coming back from the dead… Shepard, you're the worst excuse for a grunt I've ever seen."

She raised her shoulders dismissively, trying her best to wave off my query. She knew damn well what I meant, she just had too little self-value to let herself believe it. It was her personal ideology to be as humble as she could so she couldn't abuse her power, and only in small doses did she use it. But, this left her with a bit of a humility complex sometimes.

"Try and convince me another time, yeah? I thought you wanted to say something important."

"Well, I didn't really need to Shepard, you did it for me. This, right here," I said quickly, grabbing her hand and looking her dead in the eye, "is what worries me. You never give yourself any credit, you run yourself dry, you come back from missions with… with that look in your eye, the one I can never really put any words on, and it scares me, all of it. I'm worried that, day by day, I'm losing you. I'm worried that when this is all said and done there won't be any of you left to see the peace. If anyone deserves that, it's you, so… please, just talk to me. Let me hear your thoughts, every last one of them, I don't care!"

I took her hand in both of mine now, bringing her closer to me so I could rest my head on hers, as close to a real kiss as we could get. She'd asked about it before, when it was obvious that the human way of doing it was… complicated for Turians, but I indulged her rather messy style of loving more often than not. This time though, it mattered.

"I lost you once before, Anna. I wasn't there to save you when you finally needed someone. This time… this time I am, and I'll be damned if I let you go again, not when I still have a say."

Shepard looked into my eyes for a while before answering, playing idly with my talons as she thought. Normally, she was horrible at keeping her eyes locked on anything, but here and now she was boring into me with a determined focus. Not even the normally irritating stray locks of hair that graced her vision tore her away from me. It was the first time in a long time that I'd called her by her first name, a rarity that carried weight.

"You… could really tell that easily?"

I nodded softly, her eyes going to the floor dejectedly.

"Heh… I always thought I was so good that, but for even a helpless lug nut like you to call me out on it, well… I must be getting soft."

"Even the strongest alloys learn to bend if they don't want to get broken, Shepard."

"Yeah, but if I bend now…"

"You're human, Shepard, you're not anything more than that. People might worship you like an icon, a God, but in the end, you're just you, and that's all I want."

"It's not about you, Garrus! It's about keeping my shit together so that when people turn on their holovids at night, wondering if they're gonna live tomorrow, they see someone who can give them the hope they might need to keep surviving. No one else is gonna do that right now… I don't have the luxury of being human, not now, maybe not ever again…"

Shepard kept her eyes glued to the floor, hands gripping mine angrily and with more than enough force to break them if she felt like it.

"I haven't felt human since I woke up on that table barely remembering who I was, what it felt like to be alive. Ever since then I've been nothing but a toy for someone else to dress up and customize, more machine than human on the inside. Do you know how it feels to think about the fact that someone… went _inside_ you, changing everything to fit what _they_ thought would be better? I haven't felt normal since the day I saw that red glow coming out of my eyes. I'm no better than a repurposed Husk. Every time I look one of them in the eyes, I see myself… that thralled agony isn't something you forget easily."

Shepard shook her head slowly, still finding something to stare at by the floor.

"People are dying by the millions in a day, and yet I'm supposed to stand here, 'Alive', pretending that I'm not just another pawn for the Reapers, doing my best to buy everyone else time to say their prayers before they get stored inside those fuckers and processed… I can even hear Harbinger's voice in my head sometimes, Garrus. He toys with me out on those battlefields, he knows that if he fucks with me enough, I'll break… and then people still worth a damn die right next to me. People with something to live for, like Victus…"

"He chose his own path in the end. He died the way he wanted to. Not the way Harbinger wanted him to." I breathed, feeling a pang of sadness in myself at the mention of the Primarch's son.

Shepard brought her head up to my level, finally revealing the watering eyes she was trying so hard to hide from me. Of all the things I had never thought Shepard was capable of, it was the simple fear of crying in front of her boyfriend.

"That just makes it worse, so much fucking worse… he died thinking that I'd save the people he couldn't, he died thinking that I had a shot at making any of this work! He died because he thought that _I would be worth more alive than he would_ , Garrus! Too many fucking soldiers have sacrificed themselves for me, and I'm tired of it all! I can't do anything to save anyone, all I can do is pretend that I can, and let all of the galaxy believe it. I can't live with that anymore, Garrus, I can't… why… why couldn't it have been me?"

She whispered the question to me so softly, so gently, I could barely hear it, but the words had more force in them than a bullet from her gun. She pushed herself against me, still clutching my hands. Her head filed into whatever niche in my armor it could, almost like she was trying to escape her own question.

Luckily, just this once, I had the answer she was looking for.

"Because… you've still got people who need your ass to be alive and kicking. Specifically on this ship… specifically Me. I told you already, I'm never letting you go again, even if Harbinger himself comes knocking. You're mine for a _long_ time, Shepard, so if you go ahead and die… I won't forgive you."

Shepard shook on my plating, letting me feel her sobs through the metal. They resonated in my chest and all throughout me, letting me share her sorrow, in a way. We stayed like that for a time, drinking in the comfort of each other's foreign, alien features while lamenting the damning context surrounding us. I rumbled softly in my chest, remembering that Shepard said it was cute, something about reminding her of something called a "cat", whatever it was. She always was so giddy when she talked about them…

"I… fucking hate everything right now."

"I really hope you don't hate _fucking_ everything though, I heard it's a good stress relief method."

"Oh, don't you worry about that, after the day I've had, I could use some of that…"

" *cough*...Did I… help at all, Shepard?"

Still shaking off a few jitters she housed in her shoulders, she looked up to me again with red, tired eyes, just like she had when we sat in her cabin not more than a day or two ago. Since this had all started, Shepard had changed.

One minute she was a ball of fury, more so than normal, ready to gut anyone that dared interfere with her plans, the next she was _balled_ up in my arms, swearing away existence and trying to keep herself from giving up hope. This was only the beginning, I could tell, but I didn't want it to go any farther. We all needed her alive and intact, but it was more than that… it hurt me to see her thrown around so visibly by everything around her. I hated seeing her stuck inside her own head. I didn't like seeing her in pain, not one bit.

"I… I don't know. I feel like I don't know anything anymore, Garrus." she said with a toxic chuckle.

"Well, then let me tell you something you do know to help out a bit."

I pulled her back into my arms, resting my chin just on her head, pulsing my throat just enough to give her the purr she loved so much.

"I love you, Shepard. I don't want to see you hurt, not now and not ever. If you ever feel like this, _any_ time, I want you to tell me, talk about it. You might be Commander Shepard, but you still need downtime like everyone else. Even you need someone watching your back, no matter how strong or fast you are. I want to be there for you, if you'll let me."

I shut myself up, wanting to say more but feeling myself beginning to loop around the same thing. I waited for a while to hear what she would say, but didn't hear anything for an awkward few seconds. Moving to look her in the eye, I found them tightly shut, watering heavily, Shepard's normally beautiful face squeezed into a pained grimace.

"G-garrus…" was all she could manage between a deep sob, her defenses falling faster by the second.

"Shepard, I'm… sorry. I realize this is a lot for you, and I don't want to make it seem like I'm trying to keep you all to myself-"

" _Shut the fuck up, you big Turian idiot!_ " she screamed, bouncing up to my head and bashing it with hers aggressively. Mid recoil, she pounced again on me, silencing any resistance I could offer with a kiss, her tongue eagerly exploring my ridged mouth.

"I… fucking love you, Garrus Vakarian. Don't you _dare_ feel guilty for… f-for anything. I'm the one that's done this… not you. I-I'm the one that bottles up everything… not you. _You're_ the one sitting here trying to help me… so don't you _fucking tell me you're sorry_. Got it!?" she asserted between mouthfuls of air and locked tongues. Once again, Shepard had managed to catch me flat-footed, even when I had all the cards. She was really, really good at what she did.

Pulling back, suddenly and slowly, she looked up sadly at me.

"Garrus… I'm sorry. I promise, if I have something on my mind, you'll be the first to know. Deal?"

"Deal" I shot back, pulling her back into my arms tightly. Her warmth against my arms felt nice, a kind of soft radiance. It made me feel safe, and I'd missed it all these months away from her.

We stayed there in each others' arms, both too locked in the moment and our own thoughts to do anything else. I could only hope that I'd done the best thing by confronting her like this, but all I knew is that seeing her break down like this was something I never wanted to repeat. Never in the time I knew her had she reacted like this, never before had Shepard carried so much baggage.

The Reapers tried to take away my happiness. They brought Shepard to her knees. They _hurt_ her. They had just made it _very_ personal. If it hadn't been on before, it certainly was now.

They all needed to die.


End file.
